Turkey cracks down on activists, journalists ahead of NATO summit

A 13-day ban on public assemblies runs in Ankara from midnight on June 28 to midnight on July 10 as Turkey prepared to host NATO leaders, after authorities arrested activists, lawyers, journalists and others.

Human Rights Watch counted at least 209 people arrested in Ankara ahead of the July 7-8 NATO summit, while Turkish prosecutors later said 225 people were arrested on June 23. Prosecutors said 178 were sent to pretrial detention, 34 were placed under house arrest and 6 were released. Those targeted included political activists, lawyers, an academic, journalists, LGBT rights activist Yıldız Tar and 14 members of the TEMA Foundation, a nature conservation group.

Authorities tied the arrests to investigations into alleged terrorist organizations, including revolutionary leftist groups and Islamic State. Rights groups called that explanation a cover for silencing dissent. Amnesty International condemned the ban and arrests as an attack on freedom of peaceful assembly and expression, while Human Rights Watch said the use of terrorism laws against people ahead of the summit “flies in the face of the founding values of the alliance.”

The clampdown extended beyond arrests. The Ankara governor’s office barred protests, closed roads, erected barricades and increased police deployments across the city before the summit. Campaigners also criticized NATO for denying accreditation to dozens of independent Turkish journalists.

Turkey has been a NATO member since 1952 and fields the alliance’s second-largest land army. The Ankara summit was set to bring together leaders from all 32 NATO member states, including U.S. President Donald Trump.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said demonstrations and media freedom are essential in democracies and that NATO needs the media to be able to attend major events in person.